crossbreed
Americanverb (used with object)
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crossbreeds,
present (3rd person singular)
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crossbred,
past participle, past
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crossbreeding
present participle
verb (used without object)
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crossbreeds,
present (3rd person singular)
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crossbred,
past participle, past
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crossbreeding
present participle
noun
verb
noun
Other Word Forms
Inflected Forms
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
-
crossbreedsimple
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crossbreedssimple
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have crossbredperfect
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has crossbredperfect
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am crossbreedingprogressive
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are crossbreedingprogressive
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is crossbreedingprogressive
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have been crossbreedingperfect progressive
-
has been crossbreedingperfect progressive
Past
-
crossbredsimple
-
had crossbredperfect
-
was crossbreedingprogressive
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were crossbreedingprogressive
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had been crossbreedingperfect progressive
Future
Etymology
Origin of crossbreed
Explanation
A crossbreed is an animal or plant that’s a mixture of two different breeds or types. To crossbreed is to produce a creature of this type. If you crossbreed a lion and a tiger, you make a liger. Geneticists, who study DNA, make crossbreeds when they mix parents with different genes to create a new type of offspring. Often such crossbreeds are new kinds of plants. Different animals can be mixed to create crossbreeds, too. A common example of a crossbreed is with dog breeds, like when a poodle and a schnauzer are bred to create a schnoodle.
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
I am personally drawn to the most anxious among the herd — Cowboy — a crossbreed who holds his head in rigid panic, hair long and straight as a Long Beach girl’s.
From Los Angeles Times ● Apr. 9, 2025
And when distant relatives "crossbreed," this can lead to the emergence of viruses with completely new properties.
From Science Daily ● May 13, 2024
After what felt like an eternity, I was told I'd be getting a crossbreed Labrador Retriever bitch called Ursula.
From BBC ● Aug. 6, 2023
Later there were dorgis — a dachshund and corgi crossbreed — owned by the queen.
From Seattle Times ● Sep. 11, 2022
Where the two subspecies occur together, individuals of one subspecies do not crossbreed with individuals of the other subspecies and therefore react toward one another as do full species.
From Speciation of the Wandering Shrew by James S. Findley
In the 1950s, Crufts became an obedience championship show for the first time, and working sheepdogs were entered, becoming the first crossbreeds to compete.
From BBC ● Mar. 5, 2025
Nine out of 10 crossbreeds that we do go nowhere, and we have no expectation when we start.
From Scientific American ● Oct. 26, 2023
American Eskimos, Neapolitans, French bulldogs, a Siberian husky and American Staffordshire terrier, maltipoos, poodle crossbreeds and golden retrievers were some of the dogs that took to the red carpet and won prices.
From Reuters ● Dec. 12, 2022
One of those crossbreeds involves being covered in warts.
From Salon ● Oct. 30, 2022
Technically speaking, the great majority of the “yaks” one sees in the Himalaya are actually dzopkyo—male crossbreeds of yaks and cattle—or dzom, female crossbreeds.
From "Into Thin Air" by Jon Krakauer
All are hybrids - crossbred varieties created by combining two or more distinct grape species.
From BBC ● Aug. 16, 2026
American dairy producers are continuing to expand the number of beef cattle they produce that are crossbred with dairy cows, but cattlemen have been reluctant thus far to grow their herds.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Mar. 25, 2026
Large commercial rewards have been reaped from these crossbred literary partnerships.
From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 6, 2025
This evolutionary process leads to the formation of ecotypes, i.e., locally adapted "plant breeds" that differ slightly in appearance and may no longer be easily crossbred.
From Science Daily ● Jun. 19, 2024
They reminded me of miniature cafeteria ladies who’d been crossbred with dodo birds.
From "The Sea of Monsters" by Rick Riordan
Bees in Southern California, originally from Europe, started crossbreeding with Africanized bees in the 1990s, said Orange County beekeeper Mike Henderson.
From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 14, 2024
"In other words, the crossbreeding that created Arabica wasn't something that humans did," Albert says.
From Science Daily ● Apr. 15, 2024
The researchers, hoping to learn more about the plants to better protect them from pests and climate change, found that the species emerged around 600,000 years ago through natural crossbreeding of two other coffee species.
From Seattle Times ● Apr. 15, 2024
An alternative approach to making more babies, like crossbreeding northern and southern white rhinos, would mean the resulting calves wouldn’t be genetically pure northern white rhinos, Hildebrandt notes.
From National Geographic ● Jan. 24, 2024
The Merrick hybrid, yielding good crops, offers possibilities both in crossbreeding and in the raising of seedling trees from the nuts of the tree itself.
From Northern Nut Growers Association Report of the Proceedings at the 43rd Annual Meeting Rockport, Indiana, August 25, 26 and 27, 1952 by Northern Nut Growers Association
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
